The rain had not eased by the time Lucien stepped back into the streets. Neon streaked across puddles like bleeding colors, bending around his shadow as he walked. The sigil's echo still pulsed in the back of his mind, faint but insistent, a thread waiting to be tugged. He followed it through narrow walkways, through districts where light existed only to be swallowed by deeper darkness.
The Veil's underbelly was quieter tonight. Almost watchful. The kind of silence that suggested word had already spread—someone had disturbed the temple. Someone had awakened the guardians. That someone was now being tracked, evaluated, measured by unseen eyes. Lucien felt them on him as he moved, and he welcomed it.
Eventually, the trail led him to a nondescript door wedged between a shuttered augmentation clinic and a vending unit with a flickering interface. The door bore no signs, no symbols—just an embossed fingerprint scanner coated in dust. It shouldn't have stood out…but the faint trace of the sigil pulsed beneath it.
Lucien placed his hand against the surface. A cold pulse shot into his palm, reading more than patterns of skin. It scanned intent, recent contact with arcane energy, and something older—lineage. The lock clicked softly.
The room inside was dim, lit only by suspended strands of holographic code drifting like lanterns. Shelves of cracked screens and crystalline data cores lined the walls. The air smelled faintly of incense, coolant, and old books.
"Close the door," a voice said. Smooth. Measured. Confident.
Lucien did so, eyes adjusting to the shifting glow.
A figure stepped from behind a stack of humming consoles—a woman in a long, dark coat, her eyes augmented with shimmering irises that flickered through data streams. Her hair was tied back loosely, strands illuminated by the pulsing lights. One hand rested on the hilt of a short blade; the other held a crystalline device that scanned Lucien with deliberate slowness.
"I expected someone older," she said. "Or at least someone foolish enough to trip the temple's kill-switches."
Lucien didn't react. "You know about the temple?"
"Everyone who matters knows." She tapped the device, projecting a ghostly reconstruction of the sigil he had touched hours earlier. "Everyone who's still alive, anyway."
She circled him, studying his posture, his breathing, the faint glow still clinging to his hands. "You didn't just leave with the vampire's residue… You survived a direct guardian response. Impressive."
"Who are you?" Lucien asked.
She smiled faintly. "Someone who deals in information others consider…too dangerous to speak aloud. I gather whispers. Sell truths. Trade secrets. And every fragment of vampire lore that passes through the Veil eventually reaches me."
Lucien's pulse quickened. "You're the Whisper Broker."
Her eyebrow lifted. "So you're not completely uninformed. Good."
She gestured for him to sit at a small table surrounded by floating data shards. Lucien remained standing.
The Broker shrugged. "Suit yourself."
She brought up a tablet, flicking her fingers through layers of forbidden archives, encrypted bloodline charts, and fragments of vampire signatures.
"I know why you're here, Lucien Ardent," she said at last. "The noble who abandoned his legacy for an obsession. The man who seeks the one thing he believes will free him from the chains of mortality."
Lucien's jaw tightened. "I seek him because it is my choice."
"Is it?" She leaned closer. "Or did the vampire choose you first?"
He didn't answer.
She tapped the table, and the air filled with the vampire's sigils—some broken, some intact—each rotated, shifting like constellations. One matched the temple's mark. Another shared its structure. A third glowed so brightly that Lucien felt it vibrate in his bones.
"This," she said quietly, "is the signature of the one you're hunting."
Lucien stepped forward. "Tell me."
"I can't." She lowered her hand, letting the sigils fade. "You're not ready. If you knew his name now, you'd die before sunrise."
Lucien's eyes narrowed. "Then why let me in?"
"Because the vampire expected you to come here." Her voice softened. "And because he left something behind."
She handed him a small, metallic shard. It thrummed faintly with power—old, deliberate, familiar.
"A message?" Lucien asked.
"A warning," she replied. "And an invitation."
For the first time since entering the Veil, Lucien felt a chill run down his spine. He closed his fingers around the shard and met her gaze.
"Then show me the path," he said.
The Whisper Broker smiled. "Oh, Lucien… you're already on it."